Dawn Carroll, E-Public Relations Officer for the National Museums Liverpool, wrote to announce the Walker Art Gallery exhibition, Art in the Age of Steam, which includes Manet's The Railway (The Gare Saint-Lazare) and Egg's The Travelling Companions as well as many other major works; the exhibition runs from 18 April to 10 August 2008. The site explains:

Paintings that told stories were very popular in the Victorian period. From the mid-1850s, a few artists chose the railway as a setting for this type of painting.

They concentrated on two types of scene, the railway compartment and the railway station. Both raised the issue of social class. The contrast between first, second and third class travellers was a way of highlighting social inequality. The mixture of classes and incidents in the crowds expressed the restless, random nature of modern life. Departures and arrivals offered an opportunity for drama and emotion.

Frith's The Railway Station of 1862 was an enormous success and was imitated in many other countries. Later in the century, the focus of some artists moved to the poorer classes and the railway was used as a setting for paintings highlighting social problems.

References

Hunt, William Holman. "Notes on the Life of August L. Egg." The Reader. 1 (1863): 462, 486-67, 557-58; 2 (1863): 42-43, 91, 516-17; 3 (1864): 56-57. The essay appeared anonymously, but Hunt discusses writing it with William Bell Scott, one of whose letters he included in the text.